Since I'm going to Art Basel in two weeks I figured it a good time to pick back up my european adventure memoirs. I left off at Germany and from there traveled through Switzerland which turned out to be the most visually stunning and unimaginable place ever. Switzerland was a sleepy favorite of the trip. I say that because I constantly forget to tell people how much I loved it. and from a solo travel perspective, it was one of the only countries I truly spent time completely alone.
I literally kept saying, "i'm not really seeing this. it's not real." I thought I was in avatar the whole time, ha. In my journal I wrote: "5/26/14, Even when I stand and stare trying to take it in, it doesn't look real. the air is so crisp here. 5/28/14, The world really is so beautiful. like how can you live your whole life without seeing things like this?"
I texted a good friend from home when I found out I'd be able to spend the day in Basel and he told me I absolutely COULD NOT MISS the Gerhard Richter exhibiton at the Fondation Beyeler. So I didn't. I took a train from Lucerne where we were staying to Basel and spent the day exploring. it was mesmerizing.
[From the exhibition book, Gerhard Richter Pictures/Series] "In the course of his sixty-year career Richter has produced an oeuvre that has accorded him a place as one of the most influential and successful artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. [...] He is rightly celebrated worldwide as an outstanding figure, arguably the most important painter of our times."
sometimes i really wish i'd spent more time in art school so I could explain things the way I see and feel them. I always feel lost for words, but I feel so deeply sometimes I wish I could just say what it is I'm really thinking... in a way that more than only just describes it. yahh back to Switzerland. In my journal I described Basel as "Paris meets Amsterdam" based on my short time in all 3 places I think it fits, but I'd need to spend time there again to see if I still agree.
In one of the books I read during the trip—that I'll get into further when I write about Italy—there was a quote by the male character that said, "when you go to a place and have an extraordinary experience, you can never return." That might be the case with Switzerland for me. As dream-like as it was, I'm not sure if I'd want to travel there again and change my memories.
XX, C